


Enamor

by sensitivebore



Series: Lady Lights [2]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-26 11:23:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/650003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sensitivebore/pseuds/sensitivebore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sarah and Elsie, finding one another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Enamor

They have been living together for a year now in their little tea shop on the second street of Lytham. A year of selling tea and cakes and jellies and jams, a year of getting used to one another in this new place. A year of moving around each other, of learning how to coexist in the small kitchen, the little bedrooms, the bath, the minuscule sitting room with Sarah's lace curtains, Elsie's lamps.

It works. Sarah grumps and complains as she whisks batter for cakes, cools molds of jellies in cold water, but shoves Elsie out the door if she even looks like she's going to help. Bangs cupboard doors and scolds in her chippy accent if her cooking implements have been relocated. Her good bread knives go right  _there_ , her ladles  _there_. Who on earth puts a slotted spoon with the teaspoons, a slotted spoon goes  _here_.

Elsie likes to hear her mumbling and muttering, cursing at the occasional fallen cake. She makes sure to give her a crisp reprimand when she uses blue language, but that's just standards that have to be kept. She secretly likes it, feels a little thrill when Sarah swears. Had caught her breath, felt her pulse race the day Sarah had broken a water glass, had yelled — well,  _that_  word, the one she has never said in her life. Had locked herself in the bathroom to press a cold cloth to her red cheeks, had whispered it into the facecloth, felt her entire body overheat.

 _Fuck_ , Sarah had said. Just  _fuck_.

Then there had been the morning when she had walked in on Sarah smoking in her bedroom, leaning out the window in just corset and underskirt, hair streaming down her back, curls tumbling around her face. Elsie made lofty remarks about the smoking now and then — all of which Sarah ignored — but that bad habit too brought the heat to her face. Between her thighs. The cleavage spilling over the corset, the cigarette dangling gracefully between slender, strong fingers, the mist of smoke floating from the moist lips.

She could never say it, any of it. So Elsie does all that she knows how to do, in her quiet, plain way. She begins to court her.

Sarah begins the mornings now by waking up to a cup of tea on her night table, steaming hot, just the way she likes it — strong, tart with lemon, not very sweet. She notices that Elsie always puts the best rashers on her plate at breakfast. Notices that Elsie is becoming more and more adept at cooking breakfasts, wonders briefly if that has anything to do with it being her favorite meal — ever since childhood, Sarah has awoken looking forward to eggs, toast, strong tea. She comments on it and Elsie tinges pink, murmurs something about Sarah cooks all day and shouldn't have to start her mornings over the stove.

She likes sewing but hates mending; notices after a while that her torn or worn articles of clothing turn up with neat patches or replaced hemlines all on their own, folded on the end of her bed. Sees her ripped underskirt tucked under the lid of Elsie's sewing basket. She smiles.

Sarah notices all these things but bides her time, doesn't want to scare her away, doesn't want to make any type of move that might frighten Elsie. It has amazed her that after all of their years at Downton, after all of the imperious stares, the scoldings, the sharp-tongued verbal lashings, she is quieter here in her own home than in those echoing rooms. Almost timid sometimes, shy. She likes it, likes this new softness, this new yielding side of her that she had not known before.

It makes her think of what it will be like when she finally takes her to bed, and Sarah O'Brien is going to take her to bed. Perhaps not tonight, or tomorrow, but she didn't leave Downton and move to the coast of the sea to sleep in yet another single bed. To admire yet another set of curves that she wasn't allowed to touch. She never would have agreed to this arrangement if she hadn't seen the yearning, the desire in the bottomless blue eyes.

She will be yielding, and soft, when Sarah is between her thighs, arched over her, pressed against her, yes, but she suspects that Elsie might also become hungry, wanting, demanding after she realizes how it is. How it can be between them. She suspects that she will be Elsie's first woman, perhaps her first anything, and feels smug, proud at the prospect.

The slow courtship goes on, and Sarah waits and, for the first time in her life, allows herself to be seduced, instead of doing the seducing. For that's what it is, these mended things, these cups of tea, these gradually better breakfasts - a slow, quiet, honest seduction that she is enjoying more than she would have guessed. There's no dark imbalance between them, no shame, no class barriers or bad use or unrequited anything.

Just her, and this lovely older woman, and their little shop and their little house behind their little shop, and the little things that make up a life, that make up a love.

One evening Sarah is sitting on the loveseat in their living room, looking through a cookware catalog, noting the prices of this and that. Reminds herself to ask Elsie if they can afford new tart pans, and no sooner than she thinks of her, she materializes next to her and holds out Sarah's cigarettes, her lighter, an ashtray. She takes them in surprise, Elsie has made remark after remark about how she should keep such a dirty habit confined to her bedroom window or the alley behind the building, but she doesn't argue. Doesn't argue either when Elsie curls onto the sofa next to her. Her hair is down in its braid and her feet are bare and she's obviously removed her corset for the evening.

Sarah lights a cigarette, inhales with satisfaction, exhales.

"Jus' looking at the cookwares, we're gonna need new tart pans before long. Them we've got have seen better days." She flicks her ash, turns a page in the catalog.

"Miss O'Brien."

Sarah rolls her eyes in exasperation. She's told her, time and time again, about the Miss O'Brien nonsense, but she still slips sometimes, still forgets to call her by her proper name. "What have I told ye' about the Miss O'Brien stuff, Elsie? It's —"

Elsie cuts her off, silences her with a sudden movement, leans forward and presses her lips softly against Sarah's mouth. One second, two, three, four. Sarah shoves the catalog onto the floor, holds the cigarette in her left hand away from their bodies as she shifts, returns the kiss, urges Elsie to open her mouth — she does, with a soft gasp — and gently penetrates the warm wetness with her tongue, stroking, caressing, tantalizing.

Elsie pulls back, breaks their contact, smiles deeply, really smiles with dimpled cheeks and crinkled eyes and perfectly even white teeth. Retrieves the catalog from where it fell and snuggles up next to Sarah, waves a wreath of smoke away from her face.

"Let's see about these tart pans, then."


End file.
